Panasonic PT-AE2000U Home Theater Projector

We are having a hard time finding much to complain about on this model. Certainly, for those who want to ceiling mount their projector, it would be nice to have an option to get it in a white case. As it is, the dark gray casework may not be aesthetically pleasing when mounted against a white ceiling in a living room or some other multi-purpose room. However, in a dedicated theater room it won't usually make much difference.

On-board deinterlacing of 480i signals is not bad, but not great either. On the HQV test patterns, the rotating bar looked clean, but there were quite a few deinterlacing artifacts in the rippling flag. It locked reasonably well into the racetrack scene without any moiré patterns in the stands. But in the film/video cadence clip the rolling credits showed too much jitter and instability. Overall, a mixed bag.

The other limitation worth considering is that if you are going to use the Cinema modes, the light output is such that your screen size must be limited. In a dark room with no ambient light, Cinema 1 looks its very best at a screen size of 100" to 106" when displayed on our Stewart Grayhawk, with a gain of 0.95. Once we pushed it 120", we lost enough saturation and snap that we wanted to either reduce the image size or opt for the Normal operating mode. And this was all with the lens at its widest angle (shortest throw) position. Moving the projector back, and using the longer portion of the lens will dim the picture considerably. At the longest throw position, light output is curtailed by about 40% from whatever it was at the wide angle setting. So for videophiles who intend to use the AE2000 in Cinema mode, screen size and throw distances are trade-offs of great significance. Try to minimize the distance from the projector to the screen, and for the most elegant picture possible, don't push the screen size beyond about 110" diagonal unless you are using higher gain screens.

If you are opting for operation in Normal mode with higher lumen output, you have the latitude to go up to 150" diagonal or more. On all projectors there is the ever-present trade-off between image size and image quality. As you increase image size you lose effective contrast and color saturation. The interesting thing about the AE2000 is that you can go larger without as much sacrifice of color balance and color saturation as you would experience on most other models.

Reader Comments(10 comments)

Posted Mar 22, 2015 8:32 AM

By Indyraz

I've owned and used the heck out of this projector in my home theater for many years now, I've replaced at least 5 bulbs at about the 2500 hour mark and the rest of the time have thoroughly enjoyed the performance of this projector in my dark theater. Finally it is having overheating trouble and is most likely an internal fan as I can thin the air filter material and it will continue to run. But, it's time has finally come to be replaced (with the PT-AE8000) and I may miss this workhorse. I'm completely satisfied and am tempted to have it repaired for an alternate room projector! Later

Posted Aug 7, 2008 1:00 PM

By Ian Larkin

I have one with 400 hours on the bulb, but it has developed an annoying flicker. The light just pulses and returns to normal. I had been running it in Eco-Mode for the first 350 hours when it started to happen but I read on a forum that running in Eco-Mode can damage the bulb resulting in this effect. Don't know how true it is but for all you other owners who have not experienced this yet it's might be worth looking into.

Posted Jan 1, 2008 5:15 AM

By jyavenard

One other issue with the PT-AE2000. I'm not sure it's my unit or it's the same for all units.

When you turn the unit off, you can hear the lens moving back. And when you turn it on, the lens go back to its earlier position.

On my unit, after a few off/on cycles, the focus will be slightly off and will require re-adjustments.

I believe this is related to my previous comment that you can't not control the auto-focus very accurately as the steps between each settings are too big.

Today, temperature reached 42 degres celsius outside (107.6F), my cinema room was rather cool. After a 2 hours movie, the temperature was unbearable. The Panasonic pumps too much hot air. This is the #1 problem with this unit...

Posted Jan 1, 2008 5:06 AM

By jyavenard

Reply about: "How do these function buttons work? Are you able to teach a learning remote discrete input codes?

btw, I wish reviewers would pay more attention to the availability of discrete codes. Sanyo is much better than Panasonic in this regard"

The remote has three buttons at the top. You can assign a specific function to one of the buttons. Like HDMI1, HDMI2 , Set Focus etc... Then using the logitech I just learnt the code for those 3 buttons.

Posted Dec 10, 2007 10:08 AM

By DundasM3

"Remote control. Something very annoying with the Panasonic remote is that you do not have discrete IR codes to go to all different kind of inputs. Say you want to go to HDMI2, you have to cycle through all inputs until you get on HDMI2. Very annoying if using say a Logitech Harmony remote as often the input on the projector won't be correctly set after running a macro. The AE2000 has an edge over the AE900 as you can define 3 buttons to be whatever you want. But that's not enough with so many inputs (I'd like 2 more, so I get with the press of one button: HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Component, Video, VGA)"

How do these function buttons work? Are you able to teach a learning remote discrete input codes?

btw, I wish reviewers would pay more attention to the availability of discrete codes. Sanyo is much better than Panasonic in this regard

Posted Dec 8, 2007 5:34 AM

By jyavenard

I bought mine two weeks ago and I've had it setup last week... It is in replacement of a Panasonic PT-AE900.

Picture quality is very impressive compare to the AE900. Especially with HD materials like blueray or hd-dvd. But I found that even my average DivX TV recordings looked better.

I will pass on everything that I find great as it's been commented on already.

My comments so far:

Heat: The AE2000 pump a lot of hot air ! it increases very rapidly the temperature of my room by a few degrees (room is 4.8m x 3.5m * 2.8m high). It's getting warmer here in Oz (it's summer here) and it's going to be an issue soon.

Noise: The AE2000 is significantly louder than the PT-AE900, I can hear the projector over my xbox 360 ! it's rather annoying when watching a dialog scene. I'm quite surprised here as most reviews mentioned how this projector was virtually silent. I had a listen in another store and it was producing the same level of noise, so it's definitely not my unit.

Low light vs normal: Well, other than the fan is a bit quieter in low output mode, I can't tell the difference between normal and low. the difference in the AE900 was significant.

Picture is very bright (lumen-wise), in fact the whites are somewhat hard to watch (I use Cinema 1 settings). It could be that I'm just so used to the AE900 picture which was definitely not as bright. Whites sometimes make me frown.

Remote control. Something very annoying with the Panasonic remote is that you do not have discrete IR codes to go to all different kind of inputs. Say you want to go to HDMI2, you have to cycle through all inputs until you get on HDMI2. Very annoying if using say a Logitech Harmony remote as often the input on the projector won't be correctly set after running a macro. The AE2000 has an edge over the AE900 as you can define 3 buttons to be whatever you want. But that's not enough with so many inputs (I'd like 2 more, so I get with the press of one button: HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Component, Video, VGA)

Moving pictures: There is a slight blur when you have a traveling scene. All the reviews talk a lot about the quality of the picture, with still shots etc... none of them talk about what it looks like in what the projector is mainly used for: movies !! The blur effect is far more noticeable than the AE900 which was perfect there. I am not sure it's a side-effect of having such high resolution, the movie I was watching (Transformer HD-DVD) or my eyes :) but it's an annoying effect

Manuals: they are crap. The PT-AE2000 is extremely feature rich, none of those features are well-explained. Pretty much nothing on how to use the waveform screen nor is there a chapter on how to best set the projector.

motorised zoom and focus: While it's extremely convenient to be able to stand next to the screen while setting the focus, I do believe now that you can achieve better result with a manual one. The various steps aren't that progressive. Say you press 5 times the focus+ on the remote and again 5 times on focus- you won't be back where you started. The jumps between 2 changes is too high and in my case I've always felt that the perfect focus is right between two settings. It took me a fair while to get the perfect focus, it would have been much faster with a manual one.

Posted Nov 12, 2007 6:38 AM

By tireclock

How does the bightness and contrast, black/white levels and sharpness of this projector compare to the PT-AX200 and Sanyo PLV-Z5.

I know they're 720p but resolution is not as important to me as is the brightness/contrast/sharpness etc.

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